When What You Call Freedom Is Running the House

Once I left home for college, I had freedoms I did not have in my parents’ house. One of the biggest was a TV of my own. I could decide what to watch and when. My parents’ house was small. There was no good way to watch TV while anyone was sleeping. My dad went to bed early because his workday started around five in the morning.

I am pretty sure I watched some shows in the dorm just because they were on late. Not because they were good. Because I finally could.

After I got married, the TV was shared again. When the kids were very young, I made a huge deal about Star Trek: The Next Generation. It came on Sundays at five. It was an hour long. I was usually happy to be with the family. When it was time for Star Trek, I had to be in front of that set, free from distractions.

We could be having a good Sunday afternoon. When it was time to get home for the show, I turned into a grumpy bear to get everyone moving. The VCR was not reliable enough for me. Five o’clock was a hard stop.

Most weekends I made it. Once in a while something got in the way. Unexpected company. A child who was not well. I treated those things as interruptions of my freedom. I referred to my ability to watch that show, on my schedule, as freedom.

It was not freedom. It was a thing I could not put down. I messed up a lot of Sunday afternoons with my family because I would not miss an hour of television. The people in the room were waiting. The show was running the house.

A person is not free just because they can do what they want. A person is closer to free when they can say no to something they want. If a desire cannot be set down when someone in front of you needs you, the desire is in charge. I called that freedom for a long time. I was wrong.

That same pattern showed up in how I thought about God. I was fine if Jesus followed me around and answered my prayers. Me giving up control? I was not interested. I wanted a helper. I did not want a king.

In Luke chapter 9, in the story of the people who say they will follow Jesus, three people come up with a reason to delay. One wants a place to stay first. One wants to bury his father first. One wants to say goodbye first. None of those requests sound wicked. They sound reasonable. Jesus still treats them as attachments that keep a person from actually following.

I recognize myself in those delays. The show at five was a small version of the same thing. I will be present after this. I will be a husband after this. I will follow after I finish what I want. After never quite arrived.

Years later I prayed a long rosary novena with a simple intention. I told Jesus I would follow. I asked him to lead. At the end of those days I was irritated, because I had not been given a map. When I said that irritation out loud in prayer, what I heard was, “You have to wait.” That was not the answer I wanted. Waiting is what a person does when they have stopped running the schedule.

If you have a thing you have to get back to — the show, the phone, the project, the plan — while the people in the room wait, you already know the feeling I am talking about. You can be a decent person the rest of the week and still become a grumpy bear at five o’clock.

The practice is small. Name the current Sunday-at-five. Then, the next time that hard stop rises in you, stay with the person in front of you for the length of the thing you were about to protect. You do not have to throw the desire away forever. You have to find out whether you can set it down.

Being able to do what you want is not the same as being free. I learned that from a television show I thought I could not miss.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached at a Sacred Heart enthronement.